Light & Motion Urban Headlights

Light & Motion has been a pioneer in the urban headlight market for years now, and their latest Urban line is pretty much exactly what today’s commuter needs. The Urban lights feature USB rechargeable lithium ion batteries, CREE LED lights and tool-free mounting brackets. And all at affordable price points, especially when you consider that 80% of the light is manufactured in the USA. Light & Motion does their own injection molding on Cannery Row in Monterey, CA where they perform final assembly. The 180 lumen model is $99, the 300 lumen in $130 and the 500 lumen is $160. Check out www.bikelights.com.

Wow – I saw an Urban 300 the other day – and man was that thing impressively small and sleek. I was told that the same lady that designs Ibis Bicycles designs the L&M lights. Beautiful products. High quality and made in USA.

Where’s the coverage on the Solite 150???? That is a really cool headlight/bikelight/camping light.

The LBS was tellin’ me that L&M lights are tpyically outperform the other lights even when they claim significantly higher lumen output and that companies like NiteRider have to go to all the bike races so they can fix their lights when they break.

Hmm…Lezyne lights appear to be considerably cheaper. But I would much prefer the Urban mounting system. Lezyne is nominally heavier – I wonder about side by side comparison to show size – I know the Urbans are quite small and that is welcomed. Lezyne doesn’t have side lights which is bad for visibility when crossing intersections where most accidents happen.
Also it’d be nice to see difference in run time. At the L&M booth at Interbike – they showed the test results from an integrating sphere to measure light output over a given time, and many companies like NiteRider and Cygolite misrepresent their actual lumen output and run times quite significantly. I would be be cautious with a new company selling inexpensive lights.

FlynnSeptember 21, 2011 at 4:26 pm

Do these really not have a flash mode? I have the earlier gen Vega, and it was great. This one looks very nice. It looks like they improved drastically the mounting on the later Vega, but both of those have flash modes. Can anyone confirm whether or not the Urban line doesn’t? It’s not shown to have it on their website.

David TSeptember 22, 2011 at 10:43 am

Also bummed these don’t have a flash mode. Is the battery replaceable?

Jessie SueOctober 10, 2011 at 12:02 pm

All the Urbans have Flash mode! Plus it runs for about 15 hours in flash. Each model has a High, Medium, low & Flash. The flash mode is great for daytime riding.

David,
the batteries can be replaced in-house at L&M but the Li-Ion will run for about 500 cycles before you start to see lower run times.

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